BOOK REVIEW: Creepy by Jeff Bennington

Creepy: A Collection of Scary Stories (Creepy Collection Series)  

by Jeff Bennington

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RATING:  2 stars

Creepy is, as noted at the top of each of its pages, “a collection of scary stories.”  These five stories range from real-life experiences to supernatural suspense yarns designed to reflect the author’s “understanding of life, death, and terror.” 

While offering much promise in both title and story premise, Creepy simply does not deliver. 

Three of the five tales are recreations of what appear to be benign real-life encounters with the spirit world.  Unfortunately, there really isn’t enough “encounter” to base a short story on, let alone spark any real interest in the reader.   The incidents are told as matter-of-factly as someone would recount going to the grocery store for a gallon of milk.  The feeling of so-called” terror” is simply not reflected in Mr. Bennington’s words.  

The two fictional tales, Murdoch’s Eyes and The Rumblin’, offer far more in terms of suspense.  While the concept of each is solid and promising, the characters appear, in my opinion, to be flat and one dimensional.   Simply put, the writing didn’t make the characters come to life, and I was not drawn into their world or their plight.   As such, if something bad happened to them, I didn’t care and therein lies the problem.

The book also includes excerpts from some of the author’s other books.   The most impressive was The Manchester Haunting from his follow-up book, Creepy 2.  It centers on a young college girl named Genny and her crush on Blake, who is the star of the cross country team.   Genny’s transformation from innocent crush to deep obsession is more than deserving of an inclusion in a book entitled Creepy.  I couldn’t help but cringe with discomfort as Blake was haunted by Genny’s all-consuming desire.

I truly wish that the author would have paid as much attention to detail and expressive emotion in Creepy, as he did in the Creepy2 excerpt.  The tales in Creepy merely relay the events, whereas the excerpt from Creepy 2 paints a horrific portrait of them.  By bringing hidden fears to the surface, Mr. Bennington’s fictional image ensnares the reader and keeps him, or her, on the edge of their seat with every turned page, or at least it did with the excerpt from Creepy 2.